ATFAQ094 – Q1- Using computer microphone for dictation and voice amplification, Q2 – Generic Bluetooth adapters for computer, Q3 – App for labeling emotions, Q4 – GPS device for person who is blind, Q5 – Where to buy keygaurds, Q6 – Who provides Enviromental Control evaluations, Q7 Wildcard question – Who or where do you go for information when making a significant technology purchase

Panel – Brian Norton, Belva Smith, and Wade Wingler – Q1- Using computer microphone for dictation and voice amplification, Q2 – Generic Bluetooth adapters for computer, Q3 – App for labeling emotions, Q4 – GPS device for person who is blind, Q5 – Where to buy keygaurds, Q6 – Who provides Environmental Control evaluations, Q7 Wildcard question – Who or where do you go for information when making a significant technology purchase

———————————— Transcript Starts Here ——————————————

WADE WINGLER: Welcome
to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian
Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a
show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the
hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead
more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on
our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag
#ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at
tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has
questions, and we have answers. And now here’s your host, Brian Norton.

BRIAN NORTON: Hello
and welcome to ATFAQ episode 94. My name
is Brian Norton and I’m the host of the show.
We are so happy that you’ve taken time to tune in with us this
week. We have a great lineup of AT
questions for you today. Before we jump into the questions, I want to take a
moment and go around the room to introduce the folks with me. Belva?

BELVA SMITH: Hey
everybody. I’m in a different seat today.
I get to see the things going across the computer screen.

BRIAN NORTON: Totally
spaced me out. I’m looking at Josh.

JOSH ANDERSON: I’m
like, do I have to be Belva today? I
have to think of better answers than usual.

BRIAN NORTON: We
played a little musical chairs here today in the studio appear Belva is on my
left and not directly in front of me.
Belva is our vision team lead here with our clinical assistive
technology team here at Easter Seals Crossroads. She knows anything and everything about
vision related technologies here is that too much?

BELVA SMITH: No, but
we are missing —

BRIAN NORTON: They
are over here on the side. We are taking
photos. We have some pictures here in
our studio, talking about our podcast.the other in the studio is Josh, the
manager of our clinical assistive technology program. You want to say hi?

JOSH ANDERSON: Hi
everybody. That’s all I’ve got.

BRIAN NORTON: As we
jump in today, I want to take a moment for our new listeners. I want to talk to guys about how our show
works. Throughout the week, we receive
feedback and come across various assistive technology related questions. We try to put all that stuff into a
show. We have a couple of ways where we
find those questions or give you the opportunity to provide that feedback. The first is a listener line that is
317-721-7124. You can send us an email
at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or a
tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Like I
said, we want to those throughout the week and pull the questions, pull the
feedback and put all into a show.

If you have friends who aren’t listening to our show, we
would love to have them chime in as well.
You can find us on iTunes. We do
have a website, ATFAQshow.com. You can
find us on stitcher, Google play, just about anywhere. Our main website is EasterSealsTech.com and
that’s also a landing page for all of our podcast, which is ATFAQ, Assistive
Technology Update, and accessibility minute.
We would love to have you take a look at that and let folks know.

BRIAN NORTON: Without
further ado, we’re going to jump in to our first question today. We didn’t have
any feedback this past week. Our first
question of the week is, “I have a student who uses microphone for dictation on
a Surface 3 and a iPad” — Surface 3 Windows laptop. What’s Windows’
touchscreen laptop, it’s their laptop.

BELVA SMITH: I
believe they are calling it a tablet.
Not a laptop. It’s the
future. Eventually there won’t be
laptops, they will just be tablets —

JOSH ANDERSON: With
keyboards, that’s pretty much it. Is
like and iPad Pro, but Windows.

BRIAN NORTON: They
are trying to use their microphone for dictation, “But in noisy classrooms, the
student also needs a way to amplify her voice so others can hear her during
discussions. Is a microphone that can
accomplish both of these tasks?” That’s kind of a tricky question because what
you’re trying to do is get that microphone to do two things for you: first is
to do dictation, so you wanted to listen and put text into your document or
whatever you are in on your computer with.
Maybe that is Microsoft Word or text edit boxes, those kinds of things. But then you’re also wanting it to then make
it louder so that when you speak, people can hear around you.

That can be done. I
found a couple of interesting things that might be able to be done for this so
I want to go over a few of those with you.
First off, there are things with your computer you can do where you can
hear your microphone through your speakers.
If you have a microphone and speakers connected to your computer, you
can go into the system tray, and click on the speaker that is typically down
there, or you can go into your control panel and find “sounds” if you’re
looking for it that way. You want to
choose that “sound” icon, go to “hardware”, and once you get to sound, you want
to set your playback device to be your speakers. Make sure your playback device on your
computer is set to “speakers”. Then you
want to go to “recording”, and when you get to recording you want to right
click on the default microphone or whatever microphone you want to use. You want to go to “properties” and then go to
the “listen” tab — these are lots of instructions.

BELVA SMITH: But they
will be in the show notes.

JOSH ANDERSON: Can
you go back two steps? I got lost.

BELVA SMITH: They
will be in the show notes so it’s not like you have to worry about trying to
write it all down or remember at all.
You can always go to the show notes and follow it step-by-step. A question that I have about doing it this
way, is that a setting that you’re just going to set one time and be done, or
is that a setting that will have to be switched?

BRIAN NORTON: You
will have to switch this each time. You
want it when you are dictating — but here’s a way to make that happen. I have a way to make that happen. You want to make sure when you go to that
default microphone, you want to go to the properties, go to the listen tab, and
go to the “listen to this device” checkbox.
There is a checkbox underneath that says “listen to this device.” Then
you can hit “apply,” I just your sound volume. Essentially what you’re going to
want to do then is whenever you speak, you are going to listen or hear your
voice come to your speakers, is my understanding with that. In order to get that to work well — because
you’re going to have to switch back and forth very quickly depending on what
task you are doing at that moment, whether writing or trying to speak — there
are different programs that will let you do macros where you can hit a
keystroke to be able to dig in and make those things work. That may require a small keyboard macro to be
able to be written for you to make that switch between speaking and writing
tasks.

BELVA SMITH: So if
you had a Bluetooth microphone that you used —

JOSH ANDERSON: Which
I assume they are using, if they are using it on an iPad and surface.

BELVA SMITH: So if
you had a Bluetooth microphone that you were using just for the dictation, then
couldn’t you then have a microphone that would plug in to the tablet — because
I think the surface Pro has a microphone jack, I think. I’m not 100 percent sure about that. But you did say iPad because nevermind. That would work with the iPad. I just would like to see them use it to
separate microphones without having to make a switch.

JOSH ANDERSON: That’s
where I thought about it, is just a voice amplification system. A lot of those you can wear around your neck
or clip on your shirt, and they can usually — a lot of times they come with a
headset, but you can get the lapel mic so it is out of your way. It’s easy to turn off and on.

BELVA SMITH: And then
she could have that for every class.

JOSH ANDERSON: And
every time they would need it. And they
wouldn’t have to go back and forth between — they could just turn on the
dictation when they needed it, use microphone they are currently using, and
when they needed the voice amplification, just turn it on and be able to have
it for them as well. They ask, is there
any way to use one microphone with that?
You could do what Brian just said.

BELVA SMITH: That a
lot of steps.

JOSH ANDERSON: I got
bored with step three.

BRIAN NORTON: Come
on, guys. Stick with me.

BELVA SMITH: Even if
you come up with a macro, that’s going to simplify it a little bit. I don’t know.
I would just rather see it be separate.

BRIAN NORTON: Talking
through steps makes it sound like it’s seven miles long and take you all
day. But when you are looking and
pointing and moving around that way, not that hard. And with a little macro, it might make some
sense as well. The other thing is, we’ve
used CT switches before. CT switches are
where you can plug in microphone and a switch and you have a toggle or knob
where you can switch from one device to a next.
Maybe there is something together with those things. There is one called Nob Sound, N-O-B
S-O-U-N-D audio microphone headphone controller. You can find on Amazon.com. That may be an option using something like
that. And then there is also another one
where it is a wireless microphone amplifier that you can purchase the
Amazon. Looking that switch in between,
you can switch between the amplifier over to the computer back and forth, very
quickly. That might be another
option. That’s a physical device between
you, your microphone.

BELVA SMITH: Very
inexpensive, right?

BRIAN NORTON:
Exactly. I think they run $29.99. It’s maybe something you can move from device
to device. Another option that might be
useful and something to look into. Like
Belva had mentioned earlier, we will put some of this information into our show
notes. When you come to our podcast, on
our website EasterSealsTech.com, you can into that particular show. You can look up ATFAQ 0-9-4, because this is
episode 94. After about a week once we
get the podcast transcribed, all of these notes will be listed for you. You can take a look at it there.

I would love to open it up to other folks. Maybe you run into this situation before
where you have a dual purpose for a microphone.
Maybe there are opportunities or different types of technology that
you’ve used to be able to switch between a couple of different tasks. This particular one is using it for
dictation, but also to amplify your voice so other people can hear you
better. We would love to hear about what
suggestions you guys have with regard to that.
In order to do that, you can give us a call on our listener line. That’s 317-721-7124. Or send us anymore that
tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We would
love to hear from you as well. Please
let us know if you have anything to add to that.

***

[11:15] Question 2 – Generic Bluetooth adapters for
computer,

***

BRIAN NORTON: Our
second question for the day is anymore we got from Scott. Scott was interested in the tap keyboard,
something we talked about last week about ATIA.
He says, “I would like to try the tap on my Windows 10 desktop computer
and was wondering if there is a plug-in device, USB perhaps, that would allow
generic Bluetooth connectivity. I have a
USB adapter for my wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse, but that seems to be
proprietary.” Looking for a USB Bluetooth dongle.

BELVA SMITH: So you
are using Windows 10, and the tap keyboard has the ability to do a Bluetooth
connection. That would be the first
thing I would try to do. I’m not sure
why you are specifically looking to use a dongle, but I’m sure there must be a
good reason. I think Josh said you can
get those at Amazon fairly inexpensively.

JOSH ANDERSON: There
are all kinds. Most of them are
USB. While most computers have
Bluetooth, this could be one that was updated to Windows 10 that may not have
it in, being a desktop. You can go to
Amazon and search Bluetooth dongle’s and you will find all kinds of
prices. I don’t think there is any
difference in the Bluetooth. Do they
need to have a certain level of Bluetooth?

BRIAN NORTON: I think
most adapters, as Bluetooth has come along, if you buy a new adapter from
Amazon, you are probably going to get the latest type of Bluetooth
connectivity. I don’t believe there’s a
whole lot of difference between them. Is
there?

JOSH ANDERSON: Not
that I think of.

BRIAN NORTON: Just to
make sure, the tap keyboard has Bluetooth built in. It just connects and doesn’t come with a
proprietary dongle for itself, does it?

BELVA SMITH: It
doesn’t. They were using it on tablets,
which you wouldn’t be able to plug a dongle into. The one thing that might be worth mentioning
is the one thing I remember the lady said at ATIA is the Keyboard cannot be
used with the iPhone. There was a reason
and I don’t remember — I don’t think she went into good detail. It can be used with the iPad, but for
whatever reason it cannot be used with the iPhone.

BELVA SMITH: Just for
your information, the website for that notion in case you haven’t been there —
is tapwithus.com. They are running a
sale on those right now.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
don’t know where you found that sale. I
only see save $25.

BRIAN NORTON: Isn’t
that a sale?

BELVA SMITH: It just
change today. It was buy one get one
half off. Now it says buy one and save
$25.

JOSH ANDERSON: By the
time the show comes out, it may be neither.

BRIAN NORTON: Right.

JOSH ANDERSON:
Looking at their website, it does say Bluetooth 4.0 plus, so I knew that
there were numbers after it. If you look
for new dongle and it is Bluetooth 4.0, which a lot of them probably will
be. With Amazon, you can get some other
stuff. But as long as you get that, it
should definitely be able to work just fine.

BRIAN NORTON: Again,
Belva, you mentioned Windows 10 computers.
If it hadn’t been updated, it should probably have Bluetooth and you are
probably going to be okay with the Bluetooth conductivity that is already
available in your computer. Again,
$10-$20 on Amazon will get you a Bluetooth dongle that could work. Like Josh mentioned, Bluetooth 4.0 would be
the conductivity you would want since that’s what’s within the tap
keyboard. I keep saying keyboard, and it
is a keyboard, but it’s so different. A
folks haven’t listen to our podcast from a couple of weeks ago, the tap keyboard
are these bands that go over your fingers.
It looks like brass knuckles and allows you to be able to move your
fingers and type characters, symbols, spaces.
Everything you can do with a regular keyboard, you can do with your
fingers.

BELVA SMITH: And it’s
a mouse as well.

BRIAN NORTON: Very
cool device. Checked out. I think it is tapwithus.com.

BELVA SMITH: I would
like to throw out, if you do get your hand on one of these keyboards, give us
some feedback on it. I’m still looking
forward to getting them in our lending library so that individuals that live
here in the state of Indiana can give it a try.
It would be interesting to see what kind of experience you have with it.

BRIAN NORTON: Thank
you guys.

***

[15:52] Question 3 – App for labeling emotions

***

BRIAN NORTON: Our
next question is about an app for alexithymia.
They are looking for an app that will help with this. Alexithymia is
when a person has trouble identifying or labeling or expressing their
emotions. It’s reported that 30 to 60
percent of persons who suffer a brain injury deal with this to varying
degrees. I imagine not being able to
identify, label, or express your emotions can lead to a lot of frustration for
folks who may be some difficulty with processing day-to-day situation that you
come into. It may affect personal relationships and other things. As we were looking at this question and
brainstorming and thinking about the stuff, we did — we run a support group
called B.I.T.E.S here at Easter Seals Crossroads. It’s brain injury technology
and educational supports. We meet once a
month and we have folks, usually about 10 to 15 individuals with their
caretakers come and learn about technology.
That’s what the support group is about.
Is not about brain injury education.
It’s about technology and educational supports and how those things can
make an impact for folks who have brain injuries.

All that to say is a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago,
back in January we had someone come in. They showed us the My Emotional Compass
app. That is an app that helps people
dig into their emotions. The way that
works for you is you basically work through your emotions using an app where
they put you into some different quadrants as you answer questions about what
are you feeling right now, you give an answer, and it keeps asking
questions. It eventually get you down to
— as you go down the road a bit — not only to an answer to maybe how you’re
feeling in a better word to describe how you are feeling couple what might you
do with that. Josh, I think you had her
on a Assistive Technology Update podcast a while back, right?

JOSH ANDERSON: I
did. Dr. Dawn Newman. She is on episode
396, which came out December 26 on Assistive Technology Update.

BELVA SMITH: Is that an android app, iOS?

JOSH ANDERSON: It’s
available on both. There is a cost — I
don’t remember what it is off the top of my head. I want to say is like five dollars. It really walks you through. It’s not just for folks with a traumatic
brain injury or even with a problem. It
could help a lot of folks just because a lot of people have problems dealing
with emotions. Why am I angry Cree why
do I feel this way? When I was talking
to her, I was like, as a teenager that would’ve been a great thing. I would say 60 to 90 percent of teenagers
have problems with emotions. It could
really help a lot of folks. I want to
say there is a free trial. You could use
it for a little while and it doesn’t cost anything. Even if it does, it’s not a very expensive
app.

BRIAN NORTON: We
actually have a tech tip video on that as well.
You can go to YouTube if you want to take a look at the app and see it
live. If you look up the INDATA Project
on YouTube, you’re going to go to our YouTube videos. Every week here at the INDATA Project can we
put out a 3 to 4 minute video on a piece of technology telling what it is, how
it works, and who will might help. Check
that out. We would love to have you take
a look at those. You will find this
particular app available. You can see it
live and see the prompt and how it methodically works folks through that
process of identifying their emotions.
It does a really good job of helping them better describe their emotions
and how they are feeling. It charts
those things and tractor progress. It’s
a really great app. That’s the only app
I knew of that did some of that. There
are other apps that will help you identify emotions, but they don’t seem to dig
in as much as this one does.

JOSH ANDERSON: A lot
of the other one seem to be more of how to deal with them. I’m feeling angry. Okay, let’s try this. I’m feeling sad. Try this.
They don’t do as much with the identification part. Sometimes that can really help bring down
anxiety, if you actually know what you are feeling. I think my emotional compass will not guess
what’s coming next, but start to learn from the user and say, you are feeling
that way. Are you also feeling
this? And asked questions related to
that person.

BRIAN NORTON: What I
find interesting is, I talk about tracking.
It tracks your progress in certain areas. I think that’s helpful for folks who deal
with this as well, simply because as you track things, you’re going to identify
situations. Based on the situation you
are heading into, you will have some history about how you felt coming out of
those particular situations and can prepare yourself better for what you might
feel after getting into a situation that you’ve dealt with before and had
either bad feelings or good feelings.
You can better understand as you head into something how you might feel
coming out of it. Does that make sense?

JOSH ANDERSON: It
does. If I remember right — and again,
this is back in December so go back and listen to that Assistive Technology
Update for the truth — I thought you could actually share the information with
other folks, like there was a plug-in or a portal – a parent or caregiver or
therapist could actually get in and see, all, Josh was mad six times last week
but it was 26 times a week before.

BRIAN NORTON: There
is a way, a portal where people who are helping you deal with emotions can come
in and see your progress and hone in on support that they are giving you.

JOSH ANDERSON: Which
can be helpful. Brian, I know we’ve
talked about this a lot on some of the medical devices and things that could
help. If you go to your therapist once
every two weeks, once a month, it’s hard to remember how you felt that morning
much less last week, I was mad or sad or angry or anxious so many times. If you actually had something that could show
when you are on the app, how you are feeling at the time, to track it could be
all the easier and less stressful to think of all those things.

BELVA SMITH:
Newsflash. The good news is
there’s been an app price drop. It’s
only $3.99.

JOSH ANDERSON: Sweet.

BRIAN NORTON: Buy it
now.

BELVA SMITH: And if
you check out that tech tip that we did as well as the podcast that Josh did —

JOSH ANDERSON: Belva
will buy it for you?

BELVA SMITH: No. There are also some other really good YouTube
videos for it. It seems like it’s easy
to figure out if it’s going to be something good or not. However, I’m noticing that, as far as the
stars go, it doesn’t have any ratings.
If you get a and you use it and like it can go back and give them a rating.

BRIAN NORTON:
Absolutely. Again, My Emotional
Compass would be the app to help with that alexithymia, helping you identify,
label, or express her emotions better.
Take a look at that trick if you want to see it live, just go to YouTube
and look up INDATA Project.

If you have experience in this particular area, maybe you
are a behavioral list or someone who deals with this particular issue and there
are things were technologies or tools that you use to help with this, we would
love to know about that. You can send
this email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or send us a tweet with the
hashtag ATFAQ. We would love to hear
from you and be able to include that in our next show. Please do.

***

[23:13] Question 4 – GPS device for person who is blind

***

BRIAN NORTON: Our
next question is an email from a friend of ours down in southern Indiana. They work at a school in southern Indiana and
they have a college student who is blind and is looking to navigate the
campus. They are looking for a GPS type
of system. Basically says she does not
have a smart phone and doesn’t have the resources to get one. We do have some scholarship money that we
could use to purchase something, but I’m not sure what to get. Have looked at the Trekker Breeze, which is
made by Humanware, but couldn’t tell if they could put campus locations into it
or not. Do you have any recommendations
for a talking GPS that would allow us to add some campus locations.

I had some conversations with them, and it sounds like
they’ve tried the Trekker Breeze, but they were even saying that their Trekker
Breeze — which I don’t know how old it is or if it needs some updated maps —
but they said sometimes it would lead them through the middle of flowerbeds and
something like that.

BELVA SMITH: I’ve
seen that.

BRIAN NORTON:
Although we did get around campus.
She had some muddy shoes when she gets there.

JOSH ANDERSON: And
quicker than the other students.

BELVA SMITH: I’ve
seen that. I remember when the first
device came out. We had a gentleman here
in downtown Indianapolis that demonstrated it to me. We were able to navigate through the
sidewalks downtown fairly well with it.
So if it’s running her into flowerbeds and bushes, it probably does need
to be updated, and maybe it’s got some issues.
I would definitely contact Humanware to discuss that with them, because
it should work better than that. Yes,
you can put locations does actually, you can set favorites.

JOSH ANDERSON: You
definitely can. You contact places and
stuff like that. With the flowerbeds,
I’m not sure. I’ve used it to try to see
how it works in the neighborhood I used to live in. It would take me down every street, tell me
where the stop signs were, and I would mark the park and things like that and
it would take me straight to them. But
on a college campus, you are using sidewalks, not the roads. So if you say I need to go to the music
building, it’s probably going to say there is no road so as the crow
flies. That’s probably why it’s taking
you through through the flowerbeds. I
don’t know if you would have to set waypoints, kind of crossroads.

BELVA SMITH: What do
they call it? Do they call it
breadcrumbs?

JOSH ANDERSON: That’s
what I always call it.

BELVA SMITH: I think
that’s what they call it.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
compare it to Hansel and Gretel.

BELVA SMITH: I like
your option, Josh. Maybe the individual
doesn’t have the ability to have a smart phone, but she did mention that they
do possibly have some grant money that could be used for this. I liked your solution of the iPod touch.

JOSH ANDERSON: On the
college campus, I would think Wi-Fi is pretty strong about everywhere.

BRIAN NORTON: Pretty
dense.

JOSH ANDERSON: So
they wouldn’t need to have any data plan.
Than they could use the GPS with voiceover. I think would open up a lot more options to
them.

BELVA SMITH: There
are a lot of different apps available.

JOSH ANDERSON: There
is blind square, all these other things that might help them. They are still making the iPod touch, right?

BELVA SMITH: You can
still buy it. I don’t think you can
necessarily get it from Apple, but you can still buy an iPod touch. I’m pretty sure.

BRIAN NORTON: Oh
yeah. Are there other devices like
Trekker Breeze? Or is that really the
only one?

BELVA SMITH: As far
as —

BRIAN NORTON: The
only standalone? Was there a Capsis one
before?

BELVA SMITH: The
trekker is the only one that comes to my mind.
I think what killed that was the smart phones and all the different apps
that were available. Even if you can’t
get the iPod touch, you can almost go with an iPad Mini. You can still buy the iPad Mini. that’s
probably Either one of those devices, even with two or three different apps,
are going to be half the cost of trying to replace the Trackr.

JOSH ANDERSON: You
can still get an iPod touch through Apple.

BELVA SMITH: Through
Apple even?

JOSH ANDERSON: Yep.

BELVA SMITH: So I
like that option because of the wide variety of apps that are available and so
easily used. That’s probably the most
cost-effective option. Of course, we
can’t give up and do away —

BRIAN NORTON: That’s
what I was going to say. Orientation and
mobility instructors need to probably get involved at some level, not just
spend some time working with you directly to get to different places, but they
might be able to lend support with that trekker breeze and help you with
putting waypoints or tagging places or breadcrumbs, all those terms were used
to describe the same thing, to help you get around. They are the experts in helping you navigate
and get around places that you’re unfamiliar with.

BELVA SMITH: Another
option would be the Aira glasses where you can get guidance from a sighted
person by placing a call basically to them.
I realize that has a monthly fee to be able to use. The equipment is free but the service is what
you pay for. I’ll let Josh throw in because
I think you are more up-to-date on what they’re charging now.

JOSH ANDERSON:
Somewhat. I don’t know the exact
a price structure by know it’s changed a bit and come down, if you are not a
heavy duty user. Some schools and
businesses are offering it does

BELVA SMITH: At
airports and stuff.

JOSH ANDERSON: For
free. And not really for free. So you have your Aira glasses, and
essentially what you do is when you are in their area, you just log into their
account. You are using their minutes,
not yours. I don’t know if this school
has them. I know Ball State in Indiana
was one of the schools that has it. I
know there are a few in Texas and California.
Some businesses — and I don’t remember which ones. I remember Wickman’s groceries, which we
don’t have here in Indiana. I know they
are starting to use it. And some other
bigger companies are starting to do this as well just to make it more
accessible.

BELVA SMITH: I know
the airports were.

JOSH ANDERSON: I know
the school said they had some grant money.
I don’t know if that’s something they can institute, because it might
help more than one student. I don’t
know, to use someone else’s account, if you have to have your own account. I would assume you have to. But I think they don’t only offer monthly —
I want to say it’s as needed to building.
But they are always changing it and adding new places that are setting
up their own accounts to be able to help folks wrong.

BELVA SMITH: Correct
me if I’m wrong, but I think that if you use that app — and I know we don’t
have the smartphone option — but going back to the possible iPod touch or the
iPad. If you use the app, it is
free. I don’t think you have to pay for
the minutes.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
think you might be right. I think you
can at least try it and download the app and with that way.

BELVA SMITH: That
would definitely be another option to check out.

JOSH ANDERSON: For
sure.

BRIAN NORTON: I would
love to hear from our audience. If you
have any experience with different types of GPS systems, maybe closed systems
for navigating a specific place like a campus, or maybe it’s a standalone
device. We talked about trekker breeze,
but maybe there is a different type of device that you’ve had some experience
with and some success with, we would love to be able to hear about that. Again, I’ve not used a Wi-Fi enabled — like
you said, Josh, I would guess the Wi-Fi coverage is dense enough in places that
you would be able to get coverage no matter where you find yourself on a
college campus.

JOSH ANDERSON:
Usually on a college campus, unless you are in a lecture hall in the
basement. But when you’re outside, it’s
pretty strong.

BELVA SMITH: You have
to have Wi-Fi with the trekker, right?

JOSH ANDERSON: No.

BELVA SMITH: I
thought you did.

BRIAN NORTON: I don’t
think so. I think that works like a
Garmin GPS.

BELVA SMITH: To do
your updates.

JOSH ANDERSON:
Yes. To do updates and things
like that, then you have to, but it’s just the GPS satellites that is using.

BRIAN NORTON: We
would definitely love to hear from you guys with any information you might have
on this particular topic. You can do
that in a variety of ways with us. You can give us a call on our listener line
at 317-721-7124. Or send us a tweet with
hashtag ATFAQ. We would love to hear
from you.

***

[31:37] Question 5 – Where to buy keyguards,

***

BRIAN NORTON: Our next question came through email. “Where
can I buy a keyboard with a key guard that’s not very expensive?” I have gotten
this question. With the frequently asked
questions show, we look for questions that are asked frequently. For those who don’t know, key guards are
typically used for folks who need to be able to put something over the keyboard
so that they don’t accidentally pressed the wrong keys. Maybe you’ve got tremors and you accidentally
pressed the wrong keys sometimes because you have difficulty with what I refer
to as targeting, where you are trying to target the specific key. With tremors, you accidentally pressed the
one above it or below it, those kinds of things. Key guards can be helpful in making sure that
you are pressing the right keys and getting more reliable input when using a
keyboard.

To buy those inexpensively, there are lots of different
places Fentek-ind.com; there is another place called keyguardAT.com; and then
viziflex.com are all places you can purchase.
They are not the cheapest things in the world. These are all custom-made, really nicely put
together key guards running around $80, the midpoint for some of those. What you end up doing is pretty simple. You end up giving them your keyboard name and
model number, and they will go out and get the specifications for those
particular keyboards and make you a custom key guard. That $80 is probably well worth the spending
because you are going to get something that is durable, reliable, custom-made
for your particular keyboard. We do have
some of those in our loan library here at Easter Seals Crossroads within the
INDATA Project library, and they do a good job.
They are not bad.

BELVA SMITH: Maxi
AIDS is a place that we often go to four different technology as we are doing
our evaluations. If you go to the
MaxiAids.com website, you’ll see that you can buy the keys you see, which is a
large print keyboard for under $30. But
to get the key guard to go with the keyboard is $100. The key guard is going to be three times the
cost of the keyboard in most cases.
Another option would be to see if you can find a high school or college
around you where they have a 3D printer and see if they could possibly — that
could be a great project for some students to print you a key guard.

JOSH ANDERSON: On that
keyguardAT, Brian, that you gave us, depending on what type of keyboard that
you have, if you know the model number, they have some already that are
$50. That’s not quite as bad if you’re
not having to make the custom one for you.
It can save you money. They’ve
got some Apple magic keyboards, excited keyboards, some Dell and Logitech,
standard ones that they are to have the key guards made. It depends on what you need for how much it
will cost, but it looks like $50 is about the bare minimum.

BRIAN NORTON: Here is
where the elbow grease — this is one of my elbow grease dimensions of the
show. I love to tinker with different
things out in the garage with my saws and those kinds of things. You can make your own if you really want to.

BELVA SMITH: I had a
client once that made his own out of cardboard, believe it or not.

BRIAN NORTON: That
might be easier. I was thinking you
could buy us a glass or corrugated cardboard that is durable and will stand the
test of time. You can hold that plexiglass over your keyboard, draw a map of
where your keys are, and simply drill holes through that or cut holes so that
you can place your own key guard over it.
That’s probably the least expensive, but it’s going to take some elbow
grease. You will spend some time,
depends on how good you are, with your saw and how comfortable you are cutting
with things like that. You can create
your own pretty inexpensively because Plexiglas isn’t all that expensive. Corrugated cardboard wouldn’t be all that
expensive. But then is the time and
labor but into it to design your own.
That’s why those other companies charge you $80.

BELVA SMITH: That’s
why there is a cost. That’s what I was
going to say about the three printed one.
Probably by the time you bought the material and put your time into
developing it, it would probably be better to just go ahead and play $50-100
for it. I would also like to say that in
addition to using the key guard, you can also, on a Windows computer — and I’m
sure the same thing is available on a Mac.
On Windows computer, you can go into the keyboard under the control
panel and mess around with the pressure that it takes to press a key and how
long you can hold it down before it starts repeat a key or something like
that. Those kinds of little settings
within the computer can also help. I’ve
had a couple of cases where we’ve used the key guard just because the
individual just didn’t have the dexterity in their fingers to be able to get on
and off the keys as quickly as we would like.

BRIAN NORTON: In the
control panel, look for “Filter keys,” which is to keep you from doing those
repeated keystrokes. Sticky keys allows
you to hit multiple keys, so if you have a combination keystroke, you can hit
multiple keys one at a time and perform a keystroke that has multiple combo
keys.

BELVA SMITH: If you
are using a key guard, is kind of tricky to do control-alt-delete. Sticky keys
will allow you to do that by just pressing one key at a time, so to speak.

BRIAN NORTON: That’s
a better explanation. That’s why I have
you do our training around here. Out
there out the names of those websites again, fentek-ind.com; keyguardAT.com;
and viziflex.com would be some great places to start just to see what’s out
there and see the prices. Don’t forget,
you can do it on your own and it can be pretty expensive. It just depends on how handy you are and what
it would take to make it happen for yourself, just as a DIY project.

I would also like to open it up to the audience. If there are suggestions you might have for
this particular person, we would love to hear from you. You can give us a call on our listener line
at 317-721-7124. Or you can send us an
email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
We would love to hear from you.
Please let us know if you have anything to chime in on this one.

***

[38:39] Question 6 – Who provides Environmental Control
evaluations,

***

BRIAN NORTON: Our
next question is, “Where can I go to have an environmental control unit
evaluation?” Their problem was mostly I think they did have an assessment. I followed up with this particular
individual. They did have an assessment,
but it was basically a manufacturer who came out, someone who designs their own
environmental control unit system. It
was basically just looking at what they may have provided. I think that’s probably an issue in this
particular area. Unless you are doing
the DIY thing — and we will talk about that in a second — with Amazon Echo or
Google home. I think what you’re going
to find with these dedicated systems that have been around for a long time, you
are going to find that manufacturers are the only ones that know their stuff
well enough and can determine if it’s going to be able to do the job or
not. They are going to try to sell you
their product. That’s a tough one. I’m not sure exactly where you go for that,
but there are lots of different manufacturers that have systems. They would certainly be willing to come to
you and me with you and talk about their system. You may have to — much like when you get
quotes for remodeling your bathroom, you may have to have three or four folks
come out and talk to you about their system and what it can do for you, and
then make a decision based on that.

BELVA SMITH: I think
in our state, there are only a handful of those folks. I don’t think that there is an ATP
specifically for this kind of evaluation, which is why I think you have the
manufacturers as the folks who are doing the evaluations instead of having
someone who is certified in doing the evaluations and providing the
installations and training. I think
Brian, you hit it on the head when you said the manufacturers are the only ones
that really know their product and what it can do and how to make it do what it
can do.

BRIAN NORTON:
Right. When I was working with
this individual through email, basically helping figure out where he could go,
the one place that did stick out in my head as a place to start, the Shepherd
Center. I don’t know if you have heard
of the Shepherd Center before, but it is one of the top spinal cord
rehabilitation hospitals in the country.
They have quite a bit of technology at their location in Atlanta,
Georgia. You can give them a call and
talk to them about what they know about this particular area. They would probably have a lot of good
information to share about that. If you
look up Shepherd.org, you will get to them.
There is some information on the website on how to talk to them and get
some information on this type of resource.
Shepherd.org would be a place I would start with and just say hey, what
are some reputable environmental control systems.

Then again, you think about this DIY world we live in,
depending on what your abilities are and what you’re trying to control, from
simple to complex systems, maybe it is an Amazon echo or Google home and a
couple of different member modules and things that allow you to have the access
you need within your home.

BELVA SMITH: I
remember when I first started, working with you and Wade and a company — can I
say it?

BRIAN NORTON: Yes, go
ahead.

BELVA SMITH: Sage.

BRIAN NORTON: They
are great.

BELVA SMITH: I
remember the complex set of we had for this individual, for them to be able to
even just turn the Christmas tree on.
Now that’s as simple as having a Wi-Fi enabled plug-in or adapter and
one of your personal assistant. You can
simply say turn the Christmas tree on.
For that particular set up, I remember it was a computer in the closet
with all the special stuff coming out.
She was going to be able to open her blinds and turn the lights on, but
it was also complex. That stuff is all
been simplified. Brian, you did make a
good point when you said maybe this individual doesn’t have the voice to be
able to use one of the personal assistance.
That’s where it gets more complicated.

BRIAN NORTON: A lot
of these dedicated systems that are — again, I refer to as closed
systems. They are specifically for
controlling your environment. They are
not an intelligent personal assistant that will do the things the Amazon echo
and Google home do. These systems, you
can switch activate them, there are lots of options as far as getting access to
them if you don’t have enough voice volume or control. Or maybe not a voice at all. You can still get access to them with one
single movement. You can blink your eye,
wiggle your toe, move your head side to side to be able to use a switch access
to turn things on and off and be able to operate them successfully.

JOSH ANDERSON: A lot
of these don’t rely on Wi-Fi, so you don’t have to worry about your Wi-Fi going
out. They could be set up different
ways. One thing I would say is important
when you are looking at one, take a company that’s been around for a while and
will be around for a while. I know
somebody that we are working with has a very advanced system that was created
by someone a long time ago who no longer does it. Everything they have is slowly going away.

BELVA SMITH: That’s
kind of true with everything. It’s like
your TiVo. They tell you your TiVo has a
lifetime warranty. It doesn’t mean that
it’s your lifetime. It’s the devices
lifetime. I learned that the hard way.

JOSH ANDERSON: If
it’s a company that put it in, they can replace components without having to
rebuild the entirely new system from scratch.
Belva, I do have to ask, I didn’t know TiVo was still around.

BELVA SMITH: I love
my TiVo.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
didn’t know that.

BELVA SMITH:
Yes. I love my TiVo.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
learned something new today.

BELVA SMITH: It’s
full of all kinds of accessible features nowadays.

JOSH ANDERSON: Nice.

BRIAN NORTON: That’s
awesome. If you guys would love to chime
in on this, I would love to hear from you.
I would love to be able to get any feedback that you guys have with
regard to this question about environmental control units and places to go for
assessments. Or maybe just experiences
with environmental control units and what you did to pick out your own
system. You can give us a call on our
listener line at 317-721-7124. Or send
us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
We would love to hear from you.

***

[44:58] Wildcard question – Who or where do you go for
information when making a significant
technology purchase

***

WADE WINGLER: And now
it’s time for the wildcard question.

BRIAN NORTON: Our next
question is the wildcard question. This
is where I have had the opportunity to choose a question that Josh and Belva
haven’t had a chance to think about or to answer. I guess the question goes like this —

JOSH ANDERSON:
Apparently Brian hasn’t had time to think of the question either. Well done.

BRIAN NORTON: How I
want to phrase this question is more than the question. We buy stuff all the time, right?

JOSH ANDERSON: Not
us, together.

BRIAN NORTON:
Separately, we all by stuff all the time. I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of
looking around before I buy those
things. I was wondering, from your
perspective, where do you go to be able to learn about something before you buy
it? You talk about ratings earlier in
the show and stuff like that. Where do
you guys go when you are looking to buy something significant? What do you do to make sure you’re buying
something that’s going to be worth it?

JOSH ANDERSON: I
bought a new TV over Christmas, or got one as a gift. The first thing I did was,
I don’t know all the TV technology. So I
look up all the technology. What is
there? I know everything is HDR
whatever, and there are two different kinds of that, and they don’t know which
one is a good one. So when you get a TV
can make sure it has both of them. Then
there are these things like, okay, that’s great, you and I will never know the
difference. Will never be able to tell
unless you are in a perfectly lit room.
I usually read — I don’t have a certain place I go. I’ll sit and search and read two or three
different articles. People tell you
different stuff. If I’m looking at
stars, Belva, on Amazon and stuff, I usually take out the top three because I
just assume that the manufacturer putting in their own reviews. I usually take out at least two of the bad
ones because from someone who worked in customer service for a long time but no
longer has to fully, there are some people that will just complain no matter
what, or they have a damaged box or something like that. I usually take those out. I do read those reviews, if it’s something
that’s available on Amazon. And then I
price hunt, try to find things online at different places. I guess a lot of different places. A lot of times I’ll try to see if there are
YouTube videos on things if it’s a bigger item, just because if there are 25
different YouTube videos on how to replace 900 part of it, it tells me that I’m
going to be replacing a lot of parts and maybe I don’t want that.

BELVA SMITH: Josh, I
wish you would’ve asked me when you get ready to buy your TV because I could’ve
told you what reviews to go. You want to
talk to John Dvorak from TWiT TV. He’s got all the TV info. That’s the first thing I do. Right now, we are getting ready to buy a new
monitor for Todd. I told him, I absolutely
refused to allow you to spend any money on a monitor until I talked to
Craig. I try to talk to people that I
know there have experience with whatever it is I’m trying to buy. I know what Craig’s favorite manufacturer is,
but there are several models. So which
model? That’s the first thing I do, is I
try to find someone I know and trust to find out what their experience has been
with something.

I don’t typically look at reviews online, because I find
myself into the rabbit holes where I am being pulled away. I agree with you, Josh, I think if a person,
for whatever reason, maybe had a bad experience, obviously you’re going to get
a bad review.

JOSH ANDERSON: I take
the ones to heart, hey, this piece was broken, but I called the manufacturer and
they fixed it, so four stars. Or
sometimes, this piece is broken, I’ve been on hold with 12 people, I never had
it resolved, trying to send it back to Amazon, having all kinds of issues. I take those things to heart because a lot of
companies, especially ones on Amazon, seem to, if you have a bad experience,
try to fix as best they can.

BELVA SMITH: I also
try to do hands-on. I’m not going to
lie, you will find me at Best Buy trying out a monitor or a keyboard but maybe
not buying it from Best Buy. I can get a
cheaper on Amazon. I like to be able to
get my hands — I am not one to just sit down in front of the webpage and by
something. I like to get my hands on and
talk to people who are knowledgeable about whatever it is I’m looking to buy.

BRIAN NORTON: Isn’t
it amazing? Out tell you the places I go
and then I’ll come with my amazing comment.

JOSH ANDERSON: That’s
why he asked this question.

BRIAN NORTON: I go to
CNET a lot. On Amazon, I dig down —
I’ll skip to the several at the top. I
want to find the lower once.

JOSH ANDERSON: I want
to find the 2 to 4 stars. Sometimes will
have a terrible experience and give three stars.

BRIAN NORTON:
Exactly. Isn’t it interesting,
these days you get so much more feedback?
There is so much to look at with regards to stuff. Even with services these days, like Angie’s
list and home advisor and all these other things, there are so many ways to be
able to pull out information. It’s
fascinating to me that you can have the information. Like Belva said, I still, if I can get my
hands on it, I want to experience it a little bit more and get more
hands-on. I go to Best Buy. I go to Fry’s electronics. I’ll spend time just playing around with
their stuff in the store, seeing what it’s like, seeing if it fits well, seeing
if it is clear as I think it should be based on all the numbers after the TV
and stuff like that. That’s the first
time I’ve heard of TWiT TV.

JOSH ANDERSON: I
never heard of TWiT.

BELVA SMITH: You’ve
heard of TWiT. I talked about TWiT all
the time. This Week in Tech.

JOSH ANDERSON: That’s
what TWiT stands for.

BRIAN NORTON: I
understand this week in tech. I learned
something new.

BELVA SMITH: If I’m
looking for something technical, I would differently go there to look for
feedback and reviews. Not only do I end
up in those rabbit holes, but I think that people sometimes Because they didn’t
learn to correctly use whatever the product might be, they just throw back in
the box and give it a bad review. I
don’t like to depend on those kinds of reviews.

BRIAN NORTON: Totally
agree. That’s the end of our show
today. I want to thank you guys for
listening with us. Please, if you can
take an opportunity this week, if you have questions you might have regarding
assistive technology, we would love to hear from you. Or any feedback regarding questions that
we’ve talked about this week We would love to hear from you and that as
well. You can give us a call on our
listener line at 317-721-7124. Sent us
an email with the hashtag ATFAQ. Or
email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
Without your questions, we don’t have a show, so be a part of it.

WADE WINGLER:
Information provided on Assistive Technology FAQ does not constitute a
product endorsement. Our comments are
not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted by Brian
Norton; gets editorial support from Josh Anderson and Belva Smith; is produced
by me, Wade Wingler; and receives support from Easter Seals Crossroads and the
INDATA Project. ATFAQ is a proud member
of the Accessibility Channel. Find more
of our shows at www.accessibilitychannel.com.